When certainty is low and change feels constant, influence starts to matter more than authority. Too often, influence gets mistaken for persuasion - getting people round to a particular point of view - when what’s actually needed is shared understanding.
When I work with leaders and teams, I’ve noticed that the struggle to move forward isn’t because they fundamentally disagree – it’s because they’re interpreting situations differently, often without realising it.
That difference in interpretation really matters.
Image: Jan Krukau, pexels
In today’s speedy decision-making world, we’re often trying to get messages across quickly. Data is shared, slides are presented. On the surface, there’s agreement and lots of nodding. But ask a room full of people what they’ve taken from the same information and you’ll often hear very different stories.
When things are uncertain, people fill in the gaps for themselves (that’s an innate human response). The challenge is that without any space to make sense of what’s happening - together - those gaps get filled in inconsistent, and sometimes conflicting, ways.
This is where influence makes a big difference. Not as persuasion, but as the ability to slow conversations down just enough for that shared understanding to come through. To get assumptions out on the table and understand how different perspectives are shaping what people think is going on.
When people don’t have that opportunity to make sense of things together, change can feel a lot harder than it needs to be. But when it does, there’s greater clarity, tension reduces and people are able to move in the same direction - even when there are still unanswered questions.
If you’re noticing this dynamic in your teams, and you’d value space to help people make sense of what’s really going on, let’s talk.